After watching the following videos and exploring the Tales of Things website, I am sure that this sort of technology will have many uses in education. Wouldn't it be fun to have a "tales of things" project for a homework assignment?!

In the following video, Chris Speed discusses the Tales of Things project:

My Kinect and PC are waiting for my summer project. What a great opportunity to "practice" programming over my 5 week summer break..... I already know C#, and I've done a little game programming (ie. AI for Game Development - using XNA Game Studio Express- it has been a while). -Photo credit: Microsoft Research

I have some cool ideas for basic games that might be good for the students I work with who have autism spectrum disorders... and some ideas that might be fun for my grand-baby. I can't wait to have time to code again!

"The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a programming toolkit for application developers. It enables the academic and enthusiast communities easy access to the capabilities offered by the Microsoft Kinect device connected to computers running the Windows 7 operating system."

Raw sensor streamsAccess to raw data streams from the depth sensor, color camera sensor, and four-element microphone array enables developers to build upon the low-level streams that are generated by the Kinect sensor.Skeletal trackingThe capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within the Kinect field of view make it easy to create gesture-driven applications.Advanced audio capabilitiesAudio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with the Windows speech recognition API.Sample code and documentationThe SDK includes more than 100 pages of technical documentation. In addition to built-in help files, the documentation includes detailed walkthroughs for most samples provided with the SDK.Easy installationThe SDK installs quickly, requires no complex configuration, and the complete installer size is less than 100 MB. Developers can get up and running in just a few minutes with a standard standalone Kinect sensor unit (widely available at retail outlets)."

I've been wrapping up the loose ends of the last few weeks of what turned out to be quite a busy school year, so I haven't posted in about 10 days! I have lots to cover, including interesting updates about a variety of tech companies I follow.

Today, I'm sharing a video from Sony that highlights the features of the company's iPad-like tablet in a creative way:

"Here's a preview of our two tablets - codename S1 and S2.With the S1 designed for comfort and S2 built for safe portability Sony enters the Tablet arena with two very distinct offerings."-Sony

Note: If you are a new visitor, I work as a school psychologist in my "day job", which can spill over to evenings and weekends at times... I returned to school to take computer and technology courses back in the '00s, and started to blogging because it was a requirement for one of my courses.

I never stopped.

My blogs still serve me well as on-line filing cabinets, since I have a fairly wide range of interests and I like to drill down deeper into topics that strike my fancy. I'm curious that way. Because of my interest in interactive multimedia technology, most of my posts include video clips, photos, and links to interesting websites.

NESTA is the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts

RELATEDThe following links provide a wealth of resources related to emerging technologies and human-computer interaction:Experientia - Putting People First blogHCI 596 blog"This blog is for the HCI 596 course being taught at Iowa State University through it's Human-Computer Interaction program."NESTA

Jun 6, 2011

The following information was compiled by Alicia W. Roberts as a feature related to her recent article in the Charlotte Observer, "Parents find fun online for kids: How to keep boredom at bay and help youngsters learn more about science tis summer".

To enhance the visual impact of many of the following websites, parents should consider connecting the family computer to their a large HDTV display, if they have one. This will make it easier to include all members of the family in the process!

Jun 2, 2011

I thought I'd share some examples of interesting interactive multimedia sites on the web. It seems that artists, musicians, and ad agency folks have been experimenting with tools such as HTML5, SVG, Canvas, and Web GL. Some of this work is featured on Google's Chrome Experiments website, and other examples can be found on websites promoting Wrangler Jeans or Ikea furniture. This sort of content is great on a larger display.

Take some time to watch the videos and explore the links below. Enjoy!

"Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering... this Chrome Experiment has them all. "The Wilderness Downtown" is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire's song "We Used To Wait" and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio, and canvas."

ROME: "3 Dreams of Black", an Interactive Film by Chris Black (The link leads to the interactive site.)

"IKEA is now launchig the Kokokaka produced A Better Sleep for Everyone campaign site, which features IKEA's bedding catalog. 6 different mattresses are shown by 6 Swedish artists, each interpreting a classic lullaby performed in a dreamy and surreal music video. By scrolling up and down the user can change between the artist's music videos and the different mattresses. Experience, for instance, a soulful Tingsek having problems falling asleep. ust like the princess from the famous fairly tale he gets annoyed by something hard under the pile of mattresses. But guess what? It's not a pea, it's Tingsek's band! Let yourself fall asleep to beautifully performed lullabies!"

Agency: Forsman and Bodenfors; Film Production: Social Club; Director: RBG6;

"This is a campaign to promote IKEA's wardrobe solutions. IKEA wanted to show their huge range of styles and all the smart features on the inside. All the movements on the web site are controlled by sound and music. So change songs, upload your own music, play on your keyboard or sing into the microphone."

Technology and Special Needs

Proceeds from ads on this blog will be put in a fund for the development of software and related technologies for people with special needs.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

This blog is my main on-line filing cabinet/archive, open to the world. Topics include touch, multi-touch, and gesture interaction, interactive displays, screens, surfaces, environments, and systems; collaborative and social technologies, serious (and not-so-serious) games, 3-D, virtual and augmented reality, innovative learning technologies, interactive TV, DOOH (Digital Out of Home), interactive information and data visualization, the creative use of interactive multimedia content across disciplines and art forms, and universal design/accessibility.

For readers who are interested in digging deeper into a topic, I often post video presentations, slides, links to publicly available scholarly articles, references, related news articles, blog posts, and websites, and references.

The views expressed here are my own do not represent the views of my employer.